Compare And Contrast: The Glass Key Vs. Miller's Crossing

Jade Harrison
Hammett’s Detective Fiction
30 November 2015
Compare and Contrast Essay
The Glass Key vs. Miller’s Crossing (1990) The movie Miller’s Crossing got its plot from the book The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett with some small help from the novel Red Harvest. The Glass Key and Miller’s Crossing share many elements in their plots and characters creating many parallels between the two stories. This can be scene when comparing the many scenes, leading one to notice that some of the lines are picked directly from the novel.
The plot of the movie, Miller’s Crossing, is about a power struggle between two rival gangs and how the main character, Tom Regan, puts an end to it. Tom Reagan is the right hand man for Leo O'Bannon. Leo is a mob boss
Ned finds the body of the senator’s son in the street and Paul asks him to stop the investigation because he wants to marry Janet. Ned goes to New York searching for Bernie. Meanwhile someone sends a series of letters to people close to the crime and each letter hints that Paul is the murderer. Suspicion for this falls on Paul's daughter Opal, the victim's girlfriend. Paul then refuses to get a person’s brother out of jail. The man goes to the rival mob boss Shad O'Rory, who eliminates a witness to the brother's crime. Paul declares war on Shad, leading the rival to offer a bribe to Ned so that he would expose Paul. Ned refuses and is taken hostage. Ned escapes Shad and ends up in the hospital. Ned tells Paul and Janet that he was laying a trap for Shad; he then heads off to stop the newspaper from getting out. Later, Ned confronts Shad, the publisher, and Opal. The publisher commits suicide after Ned seduces his wife. Next, Ned talks to Janet, and discovers that she wrote the letters and that the Senator knew about the murder before Ned found the body. Paul later confesses that he killed the senator’s son. This and Ned's growing interest in Janet causes a rift between the men. Ned and Janet pair up to solve the murder. Beaumont uncovers evidence proving the senator killed his own son and turns him over to the
For characters the match up quite well. Tom would be Ned in the book. Verna would be Janet. Leo would be Paul. Dane would be Jeff, and Caspar would be Shad. The relationships are also strikingly similar. In particular, the relationship between Tom and Leo in the movie mirrors the relationship between Ned and Paul from the book. The relationship between Tom and Verna mirrors the relationship between Ned and Janet. The relationship between Leo and Verna mirrors the relationship between Paul and Janet. Then there is the relationship between Leo and Caspar which mirrors the relationship of Paul and Shad. Also the relationship between Dane and Caspar which mirrors the relationship of Jeff and Shad. There are many more striking similarities between how the characters interact helping solidify the idea that the movie is a pretty accurate adaptation of the